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Best Gamer’s Lunch Hour

Thirty brand-new and ­restored pinball machines line two deep-red walls in this showroom-cum-arcade, co-founded by former Broadway Arcade owner Steve Epstein and pinball champ Steve Zahler. Muted TVs loop pinball documentaries, and in the spirit of pinball purism, there’s neither music, booze, nor food. But pasty-skinned-gamer cave this is not: Test your skills on the Wizard of Oz Emerald City Limited Edition at noon on a weekday, and you’ll find Murray Hill lawyers on their lunch break. Share the machines with kids on weekend afternoons, and join the spillover from local bars at night. They’ve sold a few machines (new ones start at $6,000, ­restored at $12,000), but most revenue comes from the all-you-can-play gaming. It’s $12 for one hour, or $29 for an all-day pass.

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So what exactly does “best” mean in a city with thousands of pizza joints, hundreds of celebrity masseuses, and museum-worthy concept shops on every corner? Well, in the case of this, our annual “Best of New York” roundup, there’s a heavy emphasis on what’s new or what has somehow remained virtually unheard of (until now, of course).